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Horizontal Projectile Motion: Objective: Predict Where Your Ball Will Land!

This document discusses horizontal projectile motion and an experiment to predict where a ball will land after rolling down a ramp off a table. The experiment involves measuring the time for a ball to roll down a ramp to calculate its initial velocity, then using the height of the table and equations of motion to calculate how far the ball will travel horizontally before hitting the ground.

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Leznan Day
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569 views2 pages

Horizontal Projectile Motion: Objective: Predict Where Your Ball Will Land!

This document discusses horizontal projectile motion and an experiment to predict where a ball will land after rolling down a ramp off a table. The experiment involves measuring the time for a ball to roll down a ramp to calculate its initial velocity, then using the height of the table and equations of motion to calculate how far the ball will travel horizontally before hitting the ground.

Uploaded by

Leznan Day
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Horizontal Projectile Motion

Horiz ontal projectile motion is one of the most basic examples of classical physics. Gravity is a force
that causes acceleration towards the center of the Earth at 9.81 m/s 2. This causes objects that are
falling to increase in speed until they reach their t erminal, or maximum, velocity (or until they are
stopped by another force, like hitting the ground). Horiz ontal motion, however, is a good example of
Newtonian physics: things in motion stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. If an object is
traveling horiz ontally, it tends to travel horiz ontally at the same speed until another force changes its
motion.
In this experiment, you will build a ramp and use that to project a ball off the table. You'll calculate the
ball's velocity to determine how far the ball will travel, allowing you to anticipate the ball's trajectory and
place your target in the perfect spot.

Objective: Predict where your ball will land!


Mat erials
Empty wrapping paper tube
Tape
Books to stack
Stopwatch
Box cutter
Ping pong ball or rubber ball
Table
Meter stick
Pape
Markers

Procedure
1. Have an adult use the box cutter to cut the cardboard tube in half to create the ramp.
2. While they are cutting, use the piece of paper to draw a target. You will be trying to get to ball to
land on the target on the floor, as accurately as possible.
3. Stack some books on a table and tape the top of the cardboard tube to the book top to make
the ramp. Leave a bit of space at the end of the table as shown below. Why is this important?
4 . Measure the length of the ramp.
5. Use the stopwatch to time how long it takes for the ball to slide down the ramp. Use this time to
calculate the velocity the ball will have when it goes over the edge of the table:

where v is velocity in meters per second, d is the length of the ramp in meters, and t is the time it
takes for the ball to reach the end of the ramp, in seconds.
6. It may be helpful to take your time measurement several times and then calculate a velocity.
7. Measure the height of the table to the ground. Using the acceleration of gravity and a starting
velocity of z ero m/s, calculate how long it will take the ball to fall to the ground. You can do so

using the following equation:


Where t is time, h is height, and g is gravitational acceleration, or 9.8 meters per second per second.

8. Now, calculate the distance the ball will travel before hitting the ground (R). Simply multiply the
balls velocity by the time you calculated in step 7. Place your target at this distance away from
the edge of the table!

Result s
If your calculations are correct, you will be very close to hitting the bulls-eye of your target. Because
the ball does not travel very far, the horiz ontal velocity loss due to friction will be very small.

Why?
The horiz ontal space below the ramp is crucial to the experiment because it ensures that the vertical
component of the ball velocity is z ero when the ball leaves the table. This allows us to calculate the
time it will take to hit the floor using only the height of the table and the acceleration due to gravity.

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